Month: July 2018

OSHA has issued citations in two multiple fatality cases, one with a appropriately large penalty (for OSHA) and one not so much. What’s going on? Gavilon Grain Gavilon Grain LLC faces a half million dollar penalty for the suffocation deaths of two men, Joshua Rasbold, 28, and Marcus Tice, 32, who died after they were buried under…

2 firefighters killed as blaze rages in northern California REDDING, CALIF. —The National Park Service reports a second firefighter has died while battling the Ferguson Fire in Mariposa County. On Sunday morning, Capt. Brian Hughes of the Arrowhead Interagency Hotshots was killed. According to the National Park Service, 33-year-old Hughes was on the east side of…

This is why I work for OSHA. It’s why I’m proud to work for OSHA So someone I don’t know, Can go home safe and whole, To live and love and laugh and go to work another day, To work another day. Turns out today is the 12th anniversary of the 35th anniversary of the…

OSHA today released the text of a proposal to relieve workers of the alleged “risk” of having confidential information exposed, and employers of the “burden” of sending detailed injury information into OSHA. And of course relieving the burden on employers of having potentially embarrassing information released. I’m on vacation so more to come later about…

SOUTH SIOUX CITY, NE — A man who suffered severe burns when a grain elevator exploded in South Sioux City in May has died. A representative from Meyer Brothers Funeral Homes confirmed Thursday that Maurice C. Kellogg, 55, of Dakota City, was the man injured in the explosion, which occurred May 29 at a grain elevator owned…

It’s mid-summer and a man’s fancy turns to what’s happening in OSHA these days. Let’s update you all before you (and I) head out on vacation: Assistant Secretary: Tomorrow will mark a full 18 months of this administration and still no Assistant Secretary at OSHA. Scott Mugno, who has gone through a Senate confirmation hearing…

Too many workers are dying in the states of Kansas, Missouri and Nebraska, according to OSHA Region VII, and employers need to do something about it. An OSHA alert has gone out from the region, “seeking to stem a recent increase in workplace fatalities in Kansas, Missouri, and ebraska.” The press release cites “an increase…

Criminal Conviction Upheld: DNRB, a Missouri warehouse construction contractor (doing business as Fastrack Erectors) was confirmed to be criminally liable for the fatal fall of an employee, according to the Eighth Circuit, affirming a previous guilty verdict. 22 year-old Eric Roach died July 25, 2014, after falling 30 feet from a building under construction. Roach…

And in our continuing series of posts about why Brett Kavanaugh’s appointment to the Supreme Court would be a disaster for workers: The San Francisco Chronicle reviews Kavanaugh’s dissent in the SeaWorld case that we wrote about last week (here). Bob Egelco writes that “The appeals court ruling in SeaWorld vs. Perez stands as an illustration…

Peggy Frank, a 63-year-old California postal worker — and also a mother and grandmother — died last week while working her usual route in unusually hot weather. Frank’s heat-related death was not a freak occurrence, nor was it unusual. “An average of more than 2.2 million workers in the agriculture or construction industries worked in extreme heat each…